


Love Was Not Enough

by lrhaboggle



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Anti Lena Luthor, Compromise, Established Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, F/F, F/M, Gay, Good Person Mon-El (Supergirl TV 2015), Identity, Kara Danvers/Mon-El Break Up, Lena Luthor Doesn't Know Kara Danvers is Supergirl, Lesbian, Lesbian Lena Luthor, Love isn't enough, Mon-El (Supergirl TV 2015) Not Being an Asshole, Musing, No Endgame, Past Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Past Kara Danvers/Mon-El, Politics, Poor Alex - Freeform, Poor Everyone, Poor Kara, Poor Sam, Racism, Romance, Sad, Season 3, Sinking Ship, SuperCorp, Tragedy, Xenophobia, all the sadness, angsty, failed romance, love isn't always enough, no happy ending, oof, poor Lena, poor Mon-El, queer, season 4, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 18:03:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17882603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lrhaboggle/pseuds/lrhaboggle
Summary: After Maggie and Alex fall apart, Kara fears she and Lena will do the same. As she thinks about it, she begins to realize she is right. SuperCorp was a sinking ship even before it set sail. Now it's only a matter of time before someone drowns because, sometimes, love just isn't enough, and there are some differences you can't just ignore. (Angsty musing from Kara about Lena).





	Love Was Not Enough

First Adam, then James, then Mon-El, then Alex and Maggie. After watching so many ships sink, Kara's own belief in love was starting to flounder as well. Despite all of her best efforts, Kara found herself feeling isolated and empty. She didn't know how she felt. Heck, she didn't even know what she was _supposed_ to feel, if she was supposedto feel at all. All Kara knew was that she was lost, more so than she had ever been before.

Now here she sat, at the apartment of Lena Luthor. The two of them were watching a movie together, or rather, they had been. But Lena had since fallen asleep on Kara's shoulder and Kara, herself, couldn't have been paying less attention to the film if she had tried. Instead, her mind felt millions and millions of miles away. Instead of focusing on the action onscreen, Kara was lost in a world of love, hatred, disagreement, politics, conflict, identity, truth, lies, loneliness, pain… and failure.

When Alex had still been with Maggie, their wedding just on the horizon, Kara's heart had been filled with happiness and love. Despite the crushing blow that had been her loss of Mon-El, seeing Alex's own romance blooming so beautifully was just enough to return Kara's sense of hope to her. It had been the one light in a seemingly endless darkness. Then it, too, had flickered out, and Kara was left alone again.

Of course, she did not blame Alex. And she didn't blame Maggie either. Kara knew all too well that, sometimes, even the most idyllic of romances would not totally work out in the end. But that didn't mean the grief and turmoil following Alex and Maggie's separation didn't hurt Kara too. She would never try to steal the spotlight from Alex and claim that her grief was somehow worse than Alex's, but she could not deny that watching the two lovers become strangers had been a devastating blow to her already-fragile emotional state. Just when she thought that true love really was possible, life had to throw another curveball and ruin everything once again.

Kara heaved a deep, miserable sigh before turning to look at the woman sleeping so soundly upon her shoulder. Lena. Despite herself, the barest of smiles flickered across Kara's face as she looked down at Lena's peaceful expression. If it had not been for Lena, Kara might've totally surrendered to her misery, nothing at all to look forward to or hope for anymore. But Lena, good old Lena, remained as the one constant in Kara's crazy life. She owed so much to the Luthor and it felt like, with each passing second, Kara came to adore the other woman more and more and more… But that was where things got tricky (again).

As deeply as Kara cared for Lena, there were still so many things wrong with their relationship. The most obvious was that Kara refused to tell Lena a very big secret: that she was Supergirl. As long as that secret stood between them, there would always be something keeping them from taking that next step in their relationship. But try as she did, Kara could never find the nerve to come clean with Lena and tell the truth. As strong and brave as she was, Kara was always rendered totally powerless to Kryptonite and Lena was very much her Kryptonite.

Even though Kara had been able to tell nearly every single one of her other close friends that she was Supergirl, Lena remained the only one in the dark about Kara's true identity. Kara knew it was wrong, but every time she thought she had plucked up the courage to come out to Lena, an overwhelming sense of fear, anxiety, despair and self-loathing would wash over her and push her all the way back to square one: keeping secrets. No good, lasting relationship was ever built upon a shaky and dishonest foundation like that.

"I'm so sorry, Lena," Kara whispered to the sleeping woman. The sleeping woman did not stir in the slightest. Kara heaved another sigh. She really did feel awful about keeping her secret from Lena, but she just wasn't strong or brave enough to tell the truth. She had been told many times over that revealing her secret would be so devastating to Lena that it could possibly cost their entire relationship forever. Having already lost so much, Kara wasn't sure if she could take losing Lena as well. So as long as Lena's love and trust hung in the balance, Kara refused to take any risks, no matter how beneficial they might be in the long-run. It was a selfish, foolish, cowardly way to look at things, but Kara could see no other option if the only other path would lead to a life without Lena. That was something Kara simply could not take as an option.

But it wasn't just the women in her life that Kara grieved for. Mon-El's loss still hurt her greatly as well. But even though she did genuinely miss him, there was something about it all that left her feeling… confused. It was as if she were trapped between a rock and a hard place. Sure, Mon-El had not been perfect, but no one was. All of the people Kara knew had made some pretty bad choices in the past. Alex, Lena, Cat Grant, J'onn, and even Kara herself. They had all done very terrible things before. That wasn't to justify any of their crimes, but it was to say that the reason Kara felt capable of loving Mon-El despite _his_ flaws was because Kara knew full well that she and everyone else in her crazy, twisted family had quite a few flaws of their own.

But flaws aside, Kara had also loved Mon-El for his humor, wit and charm. Behind the arrogant, snobby, selfish bully, there had been a true hero lying in wait. That was what Kara had fallen in love with. But there was something even deeper than personality that drew Kara to Mon-El. It was the very same thing that had, initially, made her a little bit wary of Lena. Although the two had had a near-instant chemistry and mutual attraction, there was one tiny little detail that always kept the two a little bit… distant. Lena being human.

While there was nothing wrong with Lena being human, it just meant that no matter how hard she or Kara tried, Lena could never truly understand Kara's life, story, or struggle. No matter how hard either of them tried, Lena would never truly _get_ Kara. As similar as their stories were (loss of home, adoption, forced relocation, mistrust and isolation), those similarities alone were not enough to bridge the irreconcilable gap that was caused by the two of them being entirely different species. That wasn't to say a human-alien relationship couldn't work, because plenty of them did (like Lois Lane and Superman), but it _was_ to say that a human-alien relationship was far harder than a human-human or alien-alien relationship.

In the same way a man could never truly understand the struggles of a woman, and in the same way a White man could never truly understand the struggles of a Black man, a human could never truly understand the struggles of an alien. As many commonalities as they might share and as much as they both might try to understand the other, there was just something so singular about being part of a particular group that nothing else could ever replace or compensate for such a personal or all-encompassing experience. This was what had driven Kara to Mon-El.

Even though Mon-El had been a Daxamite, at least he had also been an alien. Perhaps in a different setting, he and Kara would never have even become friends, let alone lovers, but in a situation as severe as being forced to flee a home planet and take refuge on another one countless lightyears away, it got pretty lonely being an alien and all aliens were a little bit more willing to make the kind of exceptions they would never make back home. On Krypton, Kara would've considered it blasphemy to imagine herself with a Daxamite, but after going through all of the trauma that she had endured, her options were severely limited and it became a welcome sight to see any alien, regardless of their specific race.

Besides, Mon-El was a refugee too. That was something they could both understand. Maybe Lena had also lost her family and home, forced to move countless miles away into a strange new world that did not totally accept her, but she was not a refugee. That one little distinction meant a world of difference between her and Kara and Mon-El.

And even beyond the status of being a refugee, the one thing that Mon-El understood that Lena never would was the constant fear of being outed and then subsequently attacked for who he was. Unlike Lena, Mon-El understood the stress, pressure and stakes that went along with being an alien in disguise while on Earth. The constant vigilance Kara needed to keep, praying to God and Rao both that she would never be outed, was something Lena did not have to deal with. Perhaps her identity as a Luthor branded her as a target, but she didn't have to hide. She _didn't_ hide. Everyone knew her face and name. She didn't spend her days worrying if she passed. She didn't spend hours perfecting the perfect alibi to explain herself. She didn't spend countless nights worried that she might've slipped up somewhere. She didn't have to worry that someone would one day find out her deepest, darkest secret and use it against her. That was something exclusive to Kara and Mon-El and that was what set their relationship apart from Kara's relationship with Lena. It was why, at first, Kara had chosen Mon-El over Lena.

But the necessitation of hiding was not the end of the problem. If anything, it was only a side effect to that much larger theme of human vs alien. It really was that one little-but-also-not-so-little divide that really caused the rest of the problems between Kara and Lena. Any fallout they ever had stemmed from that singular root: that irreconcilable difference between who they were at their very cores. Everything else, from Kara's personal fears to her secret identity to Lena's inability to truly understand Kara was only symptomatic of that much larger theme.

Another symptom that came from this overarching difference was a slight case of xenophobia on Lena's side. Now, Kara knew full well that Lena bore no ill will towards the aliens of Earth, but one did not always need to be an active bigot in order to uphold dangerous and harmful beliefs. Even if Lena was the sweetest person on Earth (which Kara fully believed), she could still be harboring very sour ideals, whether she knew it or not. That was the problem. And it wasn't something Lena could not get a free pass for, no matter how pure her intentions were. Like they always said, the path to Hell is paved with good intentions. Good intentions are not enough to offset evil results. Lena was no exception to this rule.

But this was not her fault, it was the symptom of being born into a broken and divided society. And it was exacerbated by her being born into the dominant class: human. As friendly as Earth was to aliens, the planet still had far more humans on it and one was more likely to meet an anti-alien human than an anti-human alien (though both did exist). That was where Lena's xenophobia was. Maybe she was no active threat, but the passive problems she possessed and presented could not be ignored either. The very first time Kara had a taste of this was on their second meeting.

Kara had gone in to interview Lena, wanting to know what the Luthor thought of the new Alien Amnesty Act that the president was about to sign into law. Lena had switched the conversation over to a new invention of hers, an alien-detection device.

"It allows humans to find out who among them is not truly one of them," she had said, sounding both proud and optimistic. The cordial tone scared Kara almost as bad as the words themselves. It was like having a bucket of freezing water suddenly thrown over her head. Lena had seemed so… _cool_ before then, but that one little phrase was the catalyst to what would end up being a very long and tumultuous relationship between the two of them. Her relaxed tone was the most chilling of all, revealing just how little she understood of the social and political ramifications of her device.

Kara knew full well that Lena had made the device with the best intentions, but that was what scared Kara so badly. Lena was _not_ one of those violently anti-alien people who spewed hateful rhetoric and launched attacks against alien community, she was one of those perfectly normal, down-to-Earth, sane, simplistic everyday people. That was what made things so much more complicated. It would've been easier to hate Lena had she been more malicious, but she truly did not know why an alien detection device would be problematic. She genuinely saw no issue in it, as made obvious by the rest of their conversation that day.

"We aim to have this device in every store in every state across America," she had said. Oh, joy of joys! On top of inventing a device that would force aliens to out themselves (which would open up the door to discrimination) Lena wanted them _all over the country_!

"Doesn't that go against everything America is supposed to stand for?" Kara asked, trying to get Lena to see why this was such a problem.

"Such as…?" came the bemused reply. Not a good sign. First, Lena still seemed to be missing the point. Second, the bemused tone implied that not only was she ignorant to the problematic nature of her device, but that she considered any possible differing opinion to be silly. She was tickled by the idea of her device being a problem, that was how one-track minded she was. It implied that she did not do well when confronted with an opinion that differed from her own. That was not a good sign either.

"Well, freedom, against persecution, oppression… America has always been a country full of immigrants!" Kara tried again.

"It's also always been a country full of humans," Lena gave Kara another bemused smirk and Kara was left terrified. She could never tell this woman who, _what_ , she was. And what was it that Lena had said? _Who among them is not truly one of them. Not truly one of them._ Kara was not one of them. One of the humans. One of the normal crowd. Not truly. She was an alien. By default, she did not fit in. She did not belong. Maybe she was allowed, but she was not accepted. Tolerated but not welcomed. Kara deflated at the thought, heart still pounding nervously. What would Lena do to her if she ever found out the truth that Kara was an alien?

"Don't you think that this device will force aliens back into the very shadows the president is trying to shine a light on?" Kara tried next.

"If aliens want to be citizens, that's now their right," Lena replied. "But if humans want to know which of their fellow citizens aren't actually one of them, then that's their right too!" _If humans want to know which of their fellow citizens aren't actually one of them_ … _Aren't actually one of them_ … Tolerated but not welcomed. And even more chilling, selfish, ignorant and entitled was Lena's belief that it was a human's _right_ to know someone else's true identity, that it was somehow someone's right to have such personal and sensitive information on demand. Not a good sign…

And that was why Kara never ever pursued a deeper relationship with Lena. Lena was, plain and simple, anti-alien. Kara got a firsthand taste of that with Lena's little alien-detector. Even though Lena had built the device with good intentions, the sentiment behind the device was still very anti-alien. From that day on, Kara knew that a relationship between her and Lena would never ever truly work or last. Could she really overlook such a glaring problem with Lena's worldview? Could she really, in good faith, court someone who stood against her very existence?

Perhaps Lena meant no harm, but the truth of the matter was, she was still anti-alien, and by being anti-alien, she was anti-Kara. No matter how good or mellow her views were, at the end of the day, this was something Kara literally could not reconcile with. And that was when the secrets began. (In retrospect, this all reminded Kara of anyone who had ever made a homophobic joke in genuinely good humor, only to then drive away or frighten any closeted gay people within the vicinity. A harmless joke could yield very real and terrible consequences after all).

And one would consider it rude to demand to know if someone else was gay, yet Lena somehow felt that it was ok for her to insist that humans had a right to know who was or wasn't an alien. Kara would've laughed had she not found the sentiment so terrifying. And Lena's conviction in her beliefs did her no favors in Kara's eyes.

This was why Kara had never told Lena about her secret identity. It was not because Lena was a Luthor. It was because she was anti-alien. Whether she knew it or not, whether she meant it or not, she was. Perhaps it seemed like Kara was taking this a bit too far, but there were just some things she couldn't ignore or overlook. This was one of those things. Lena, however subtly or subconsciously, had proven that she did not consider aliens as equal to humans. That was something Kara just could not overlook, not when so much of her identity was compromised in the process.

So from that day on, Kara had hidden, vowing never to tell Lena the truth, for fear of what Lena might do to her if she ever did find out. It wouldn't have been the first time Kara had lost a friend because they couldn't tolerate the idea of her alien identity. She just didn't want the same thing to happen with Lena, so she hid, and she lied.

But with Mon-El, Kara never had to hide, fear or loathe her alien identity. It was why she had chosen him over Lena. Even if Daxamites and Kryptonians were enemies, at least they were both aliens. Kara would never face that type of prejudice and discrimination from Mon-El… But even so, Kara had always loved Lena. Before, during and after her romance with Mon-El, Kara had loved Lena. When Kara looked past Lena's human-ness, and her moderately anti-alien views, Kara saw the most beautiful soul any planet could've ever created. She saw a woman who laughed and loved. Even if she hid it behind a cold and professional mask, Lena's heart was warm and real. Kara knew this and it was one of the things she loved most about Lena: how unfailingly _good_ she could be. She was a woman who constantly strove for justice and goodness.

When Kara looked at Lena, even while she was with Mon-El, she saw someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She saw someone who shared a lot of the same values she did, even if their beliefs differed. They were both so fixated on justice, and it was one of the many things Kara adored about Lena. But that still brought up another problem. Kara did not doubt that Lena would always fight for what was right. What Kara doubted was what Lena considered right. The problem was not if Lena would choose the side of good, the problem was what Lena considered good. That was where things could get problematic.

It was the one thing Kara could never really look past, although she did try. But of course, Mon-El wasn't perfect either. There were pros and cons for both of Kara's love interests. Kara really had shared something special and beautiful and powerful with Mon-El, something unique that not even Lena could ever share with Kara. But Lena had had something that Mon-El hadn't had either, so they were well-matched in Kara's eyes. Both of them held a special part of her, but how could she choose? How could she pick just one half of who she truly was?

But even after Kara managed to put Mon-El behind her and move onto Lena, things still were far from perfect. Although Kara was more than willing to sacrifice some of her beliefs and values in order to keep Lena close, there was only so much Kara could give before she reached a breaking point. Compromise could only stretch so far. How much of her identity did Kara have to sacrifice to make this work? How much could she give up before she ceased to be Kara Danvers altogether?

Maybe a Luthor and a Super really were always bound to fail. Not because of any bad blood between families, but just because their political and world views were irreconcilably different. It was the same thing that had torn Lex and Clark apart, after all. Lex became more and more aggressive in his anti-alien sentiments and Clark had finally been forced to take a stand, creating one of the most intense and infamous rivalries in all the world. Were Kara and Lena destined to walk a similar path? Maybe they would never go to war the way Lex and Clark had, but would Kara and Lena still fall apart the same way Lex and Clark had?

A Super could never truly be anti-alien so long as she, herself, was alien. And would a Luthor really ever change her mind or step down from the things she believed in so deeply? And would it even be fair to ask her to? If Kara wasn't willing to make this many sacrifices, was it right, fair or logical to demand likewise from Lena?

Then Kara's mind then flickered over to Samantha Arias, who was another Kryptonian. Lena was friendly with Sam even though Sam turned out to be a part-time, mass-murdering psycho… but that was just it! Lena was friendly with Sam's human side, not the alien side. That mass-murdering psycho had been the part Lena wanted to destroy. Of course, in this case, any anti-alien sentiment was rational, but what did it mean for the rest of alien-kind on a larger scale? Would Lena only love and trust an alien if, like Sam, they were willing to lose their alien side? (Metaphorically speaking, of course).

This was the age-old clash between assimilation and diversity. Was a newcomer dutybound to suppress their differences and try to fit in with the culture they had moved into? Or should they be allowed to keep their individuality? Kara was sure that the true answer lay somewhere in the middle, but then the next question was where that middle was. Kara loved Lena deeply, but it wasn't fair to ask her to totally forgive all of Lena's shadier political beliefs in the name of romance. Kara was more than just a lover, she was also an individual in her own right. At the same time, though, it wasn't fair of her to demand that Lena change either. Oh, it was all just so confusing!

And that was why Maggie and Alex's romance had started to mean so much to Kara. In the dark and confusing world of love, hate, sacrifice and preservation, Maggie and Alex's romance seemed like the only simple and solid thing. That wasn't to say that they didn't have their struggles as well, but it wasn't nearly as crazy and confusing as Kara's struggles between Mon-El, Lena and her own personal beliefs and feelings.

For a time, Maggie and Alex's romance was almost cathartic for Kara, giving her a simpler romance to focus on and something to actually smile about instead of brood over. It acted like a light in the dark for her, the happily ever after that seemed to refuse to show its face anywhere else in her life. Maggie and Alex's romance gave Kara something worth hoping for. Then it all came crashing down.

Just like Kara, Mon-El and Lena, the tiny differences between Maggie and Alex snowballed into clashing core values which were not so easily overlooked or compromised. That first little disagreement over motherhood became the first brick in the wall that would eventually divide Maggie and Alex past the point of no return. After that catalyst, the rest all came flooding out until they finally were forced to call everything off. Neither Maggie nor Alex could compromise without one of them sacrificing far too much in the name of keeping their ship afloat. Any compromise would be very one-sided. It would be winner and loser, not Alex and Maggie. There was no fair or even outcome in this disagreement.

And that was the thing, although a couple was one cohesive unit, each part of that couple was still his or her own individual. Individual autonomy did not end when the couple began. Each party in the couple still had a right to their own life and happiness. They were not _just_ a couple, they were two individuals who had come together under mutual agreement. But when happens when that agreement turns into disagreement? It wouldn't be fair to ask either half to sacrifice too much of themselves. Saving the couple was not always worth it if it meant losing the individuals. Besides, would it really even be the same couple it used to be if one party had to sacrifice so much that they almost became a different person?

That was the challenge Alex and Maggie faced and, in the end, it proved to be too much for them to overcome. Painful as it was, both of them decided that it was in their best personal interests to part ways, so they did. End the couple to save the individuals… It was a brave thing to do and Kara agreed with it, but it was still painful to watch. It was so disheartening, especially after all the other relationship dramas she'd endured.

Worst of all, though, were the undeniable parallels between Alex and Maggie's failed relationship and the road to ruin that Kara and Lena's was headed towards. Alex and Maggie had been Kara's idealized goal for herself and Lena. Alex and Maggie had given Kara hope that two different people _could_ set aside their differences to make love work. Then Alex and Maggie fell apart. Their differences and their right to those differences finally got between them and Kara, with a sinking stomach, wondered if she and Lena would someday reach the same point.

Maybe right now, everything was ok, but tomorrow was never promised. Besides, signs of tension between the two of them were already starting to pop up, even if neither of them had come to any cataclysmic blows yet. But that didn't mean it couldn't happen eventually, and that was what Kara was most afraid of. She was worried that it was already too late and that the question was not "if" but "when".

Kara began to wonder if breaking up with Lena wouldn't be the better option. Sure, it wouldn't be fun, but if it spared them from even worse heartbreak down the road, wouldn't it be better to end things _before_ it got to that point? But Kara just didn't have the nerve to say goodbye to Lena. Although it was selfish, she wanted to keep Lena with her forever. But Kara already knew that they were headed down a dead-end street. The fallout would be much worse if she waited, but she just didn't have the guts to go forward or back with Lena. She was too scared to move at all.

Love was not enough to save Alex and Maggie. Love was not enough to save Kara and Mon-El. Love would not be enough to save Kara and Lena. It was an agonizing lesson, but one Kara could no longer close her eyes to. There was just too much proof to the contrary. Like a storm on the horizon, Kara could already see it even though it had not happened yet. But it was inevitable. Kara loved Lena, but love was not enough.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Just a random and depressing one-shot that's meant to be some musing about Kara's romantic relationships and a darker twist on the fate of SuperCorp. SuperCorp is canon in this fic, but it's not the idealized power couple we like to imagine it as. Instead, it's a flawed and failing relationship whose foundation was never that strong to begin with. Kara beings to see this, and how different she and Lena really are, and she worries that, like with Maggie and Alex, they will finally reach some sort of impasse where compromise is no longer possible.
> 
> I don't ship Karamel, but I like to think that there was a real reason Kara hooked up with him beyond lazy CW writing. I also like to think that Kara felt torn between Mon-El and Lena because they both represented an important piece of her identity and values. She just couldn't decide which half she valued more, and that's where the trouble started. (I know polyamory is a thing, but let's just assume that, in this case, Kara rejects the idea because she can't see herself with more than one partner, or she can't see Lena ever wanting to be intimate with Mon-El).
> 
> Consider this my way of being angsty because of how intense and volatile Supercorp has been ever since halfway through S3. I also like the "love is not enough" life lesson, even though it's a hard one to be sure. But it's true, sometimes certain lines cannot be crossed and even love is not enough to save the day. 
> 
> On a personal level, this is me debating on whether or not I can keep friends who have such radically opposing political viewpoints. I want to see them as more than just their politics, but it's not always easy to separate the humans from their beliefs, especially when the differing opinions deal with human rights issues. I don't think that you can always just set aside your beliefs in the name of getting along. Call my cynical and cruel, but that's just my two cents on everything. Let me know what you guys think. Where is the line between compromise and taking a stand, even if it causes tension along the way?


End file.
